High gain shootout Marshall JMP 2204 vs Friedman BE100DLX vs Fryette Pittbull CL

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Nolly said:
How long do you think the decay time of a guitar cab is? How long would an IR need to be to capture authentic dynamics of a cab, in your opinion?
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Cab IR's are used to create an EQ curve, have nothing to do with decay time, and do not capture 'authentic dynamics' - so that question is unanswerable.

However a 20ms IR created from a 1 sample tick can near perfectly recreate the response of a close-miked cab if done properly - something that many manufacturers figured out a long time ago. Pete Thorn did a good video on 20ms vs 200ms IR's - but doing it for yourself is always far better.

I was certainly a non-believer until I performed extensive testing on this (we're currently creating our own load and IR's for a special project). I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I have put in a few hundred hours and have made a suite of IR's from a pretty large and varied collection of cabs that are indistinguishable from the source. The whole concept seems so counter-intuitive until you get the results yourself, then it's a real lightbulb moment.

I've confined my learning exclusively to cab responses, and claim no expertise on reverberant acoustic spaces and convolution reverbs - maybe if we have another 7 month lockdown here in Australia I'll deep dive into that.

I'm not trying to argue with you, just report what I've learnt over the last couple of years on the subject, cheers.
 
ZEN Amps said:
Cab IR's are used to create an EQ curve, have nothing to do with decay time, and do not capture 'authentic dynamics' - so that question is unanswerable.

However a 20ms IR created from a 1 sample tick can near perfectly recreate the response of a close-miked cab if done properly - something that many manufacturers figured out a long time ago. Pete Thorn did a good video on 20ms vs 200ms IR's - but doing it for yourself is always far better.

I was certainly a non-believer until I performed extensive testing on this (we're currently creating our own load and IR's for a special project). I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I have put in a few hundred hours and have made a suite of IR's from a pretty large and varied collection of cabs that are indistinguishable from the source. The whole concept seems so counter-intuitive until you get the results yourself, then it's a real lightbulb moment.

I've confined my learning exclusively to cab responses, and claim no expertise on reverberant acoustic spaces and convolution reverbs - maybe if we have another 7 month lockdown here in Australia I'll deep dive into that.

I'm not trying to argue with you, just report what I've learnt over the last couple of years on the subject, cheers.
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Great! For disclosure, I too have spent years and 100's of hours on this, having created IR products for my software company and under license for others. It's nice to talk to someone who has done similarly. This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping to have, and I am not trying to argue either.

My concern with your initial post is that it reads in such a way that it seemingly confirms the common misconception that all a cab IR is is a static EQ curve, which in terms leads to pre-conceived ideas like the one shown by the OP that a real cab with have "more dynamics" than an well captured IR as part of an appropriate signal chain.
I'll repeat, though I'm you are aware yet aren't saying explicitly, an IR file is not a simple EQ curve, it has a time domain that expresses the change in EQ over time of the acoustic space being captured. Your expertise is transferrable to capturing acoustic spaces. In capturing a close-mic'd guitar cab IR you are capturing an acoustic space, it's just you're using a very coloured playback device and placing your capture microphone extremely close to it.

It seems we agree as well that when captured with an appropriate method, IRs can sound vanishingly similar to a real cab. I also agree that using a short tick as your impulse and creating a <50ms IR file is not an accurate method. Furthermore I do echo your points about the fact an IR has a linear response to input signal level, unlike a real speaker/cabinet which has a non-linear response due to mechanically limited headroom.

I'd like for online conversation about IRs and guitar tones in general to be more factual and nuanced since, as evidenced in this thread and countless others, it seems people draw highly biased conclusions from poorly controlled comparisons and opinions.
 
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Nolly said:
Great! For disclosure, I too have spent years and 100's of hours on this, having created IR products for my software company and under license for others. It's nice to talk to someone who has done similarly. This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping to have, and I am not trying to argue either.
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Ha, sorry I wasn't aware of this - you just never know with this bizarre form of communication. In that case I'll probably be picking your brain a bit - after 100's of hours it still feels like the surface is just being scratched!
 
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ZEN Amps said:
Ha, sorry I wasn't aware of this - you just never know with this bizarre form of communication. In that case I'll probably be picking your brain a bit - after 100's of hours it still feels like the surface is just being scratched!
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All good, yes it can be tough to know who to take seriously online!
 
Rolly, man you are:
“The Charlie Daniels of the torque wrench”
(psychologically speaking).
LTFOL man!!!!
Gotta admit that lyric from
“Queen of My Double Wide Trailer” is PRICELESS.

Hell yeah Sammy!!

*Edited with added music video for reference and a humerous way to start the top of the week.*

 
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Dino 939 said:
Rolly, man you are:
“The Charlie Daniels of the torque wrench”
(psychologically speaking).
LTFOL man!!!!
Gotta admit that lyric from
“Queen of My Double Wide Trailer” is PRICELESS.

Hell yeah Sammy!!

*Edited with added music video for reference and a humerous way to start the top of the week.*

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I think you’re paying me compliments, but mate, I just don’t get the references I’m afraid! Thanks though, if you’re being nice
 
Nolly said:
I dunno mate, if the goal was to simply get the JMP up to a comparable saturation, they could easily have used a transparent clean boost or even just sent a hotter signal down the reamp chain for that amp. Somehow I don’t think everyone would like that tone the most though

To be clear, I think the boosted JMP sounds better than the other two in this comparison, but I don’t think that means anyone can say the JMP is a better amp than the other two. Basically the video serves purely as a demonstration of 3 cool tones from 3 cool rigs

Imagine if you were doing a burger comparison. Burger #1 is the OG but has a smaller patty than the others so you decide to add some grilled bacon to that one. Bizarrely no one notices the bacon or gives it much importance yet everyone tastes the three burgers and goes “mmmm yeahhhh burger #1 FTW! Almost like it has this kinda extra smoky salty extra kick to it or something. Burgers #2 and #3 just can’t hang with it at all!”…
I think people would agree you’d not presented a fair comparison.
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Just stop. The other two amps are modern high gainers, the Marshall is not. The boost is merely to get the gain level into similar territory, for the sake of a more even playing field. That‘s what you do to old Marshalls, you boost them. Something magical happens that’s not to be questioned or scrutinized, it just IS. Same goes with boosting a Recto, you just do it because it fucking rules. That being said and gain levels aside, the core tone of the Marshall was next level, maybe two levels above the other two amps.
And make mine extra bacon. 😉
 
Nolly said:
I think you’re paying me compliments, but mate, I just don’t get the references I’m afraid! Thanks though, if you’re being nice
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Half the time we never know what the fuck Dino is talking about, but he’s a good egg.
 
Racerxrated said:
The VHT and Friedman are bought as ‘straight in, no boost needed’ amps while everyone knows you have to boost most Marshalls. Of course maybe some boost VHT/Friedman too…
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Friedmans love boosts. If you ever get the chance, try it out. Both the BE and HBE channels really jump to life.
 
Nolly said:
I think you’re paying me compliments, but mate, I just don’t get the references I’m afraid! Thanks though, if you’re being nice
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I like the way you break things down.
The Charlie Daniels of the torque wrench reference
I Installed was a metaphor for bad ass thinking., sort of.
 
Beyond Black said:
Just stop. The other two amps are modern high gainers, the Marshall is not. The boost is merely to get the gain level into similar territory, for the sake of a more even playing field. That‘s what you do to old Marshalls, you boost them. Something magical happens that’s not to be questioned or scrutinized, it just IS. Same goes with boosting a Recto, you just do it because it fucking rules. That being said and gain levels aside, the core tone of the Marshall was next level, maybe two levels above the other two amps.
And make mine extra bacon. 😉
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If I take A, B, and C... and compare them. Fine. Valid comparison.

If I take A+OD pedal, B, and C... that is not a valid comparison. Because I'm comparing two similar things to one dissimilar thing.

Adding an OD to the JMP means you're no longer comparing amps. You're comparing tones. Which is fine in and of itself. But it isn't an amp comparison. So no claims can be made about the amps themselves.

That is because the OD is doing more than just bringing the gain up. It is shaping the low-end and the high-end. It is changing the pick attack, and the frequency response of the entire system. It is doing additional stuff to the final tone that the other two amps are not benefiting from.

This is depending on their circuit designs of course, because some amps do in fact have the equivalent of an OD pedal at the front-end. Like the Marshall JCM900 for example; and hilariously, people think they're not real valve amps because of this! LMAO.

@Nolly I was at the MF studio last year doing BFD stuff - great place! It would be interesting to chat at some point.
 
Amberience said:
If I take A, B, and C... and compare them. Fine. Valid comparison.

If I take A+OD pedal, B, and C... that is not a valid comparison. Because I'm comparing two similar things to one dissimilar thing.

Adding an OD to the JMP means you're no longer comparing amps. You're comparing tones. Which is fine in and of itself. But it isn't an amp comparison. So no claims can be made about the amps themselves.

That is because the OD is doing more than just bringing the gain up. It is shaping the low-end and the high-end. It is changing the pick attack, and the frequency response of the entire system. It is doing additional stuff to the final tone that the other two amps are not benefiting from.

This is depending on their circuit designs of course, because some amps do in fact have the equivalent of an OD pedal at the front-end. Like the Marshall JCM900 for example; and hilariously, people think they're not real valve amps because of this! LMAO.

@Nolly I was at the MF studio last year doing BFD stuff - great place! It would be interesting to chat at some point.
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Good point but any way you cut it, I would prefer the Marshall all day long.
 
I actually preferred the Fryette. Had a little more clarity and less granularity through my speaker. Friedman was on the bottom
 
Amberience said:
If I take A, B, and C... and compare them. Fine. Valid comparison.

If I take A+OD pedal, B, and C... that is not a valid comparison. Because I'm comparing two similar things to one dissimilar thing.

Adding an OD to the JMP means you're no longer comparing amps. You're comparing tones. Which is fine in and of itself. But it isn't an amp comparison. So no claims can be made about the amps themselves.

That is because the OD is doing more than just bringing the gain up. It is shaping the low-end and the high-end. It is changing the pick attack, and the frequency response of the entire system. It is doing additional stuff to the final tone that the other two amps are not benefiting from.

This is depending on their circuit designs of course, because some amps do in fact have the equivalent of an OD pedal at the front-end. Like the Marshall JCM900 for example; and hilariously, people think they're not real valve amps because of this! LMAO.

@Nolly I was at the MF studio last year doing BFD stuff - great place! It would be interesting to chat at some point.
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Fair enough, and you make a good point. Boost all three and my cash is still on the Marshall.
 
Geo said:
Good point but any way you cut it, I would prefer the Marshall all day long.
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I liked all of them tbh! With a slight preference for the Marshall.

I have my Satch JVM which gives me loads of great Marshall tones in the box. I'd like a JCM900 and JCM800 at some point in the future.
 
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Amberience said:
If I take A, B, and C... and compare them. Fine. Valid comparison.

If I take A+OD pedal, B, and C... that is not a valid comparison. Because I'm comparing two similar things to one dissimilar thing.

Adding an OD to the JMP means you're no longer comparing amps. You're comparing tones. Which is fine in and of itself. But it isn't an amp comparison. So no claims can be made about the amps themselves.

That is because the OD is doing more than just bringing the gain up. It is shaping the low-end and the high-end. It is changing the pick attack, and the frequency response of the entire system. It is doing additional stuff to the final tone that the other two amps are not benefiting from.

This is depending on their circuit designs of course, because some amps do in fact have the equivalent of an OD pedal at the front-end. Like the Marshall JCM900 for example; and hilariously, people think they're not real valve amps because of this! LMAO.

@Nolly I was at the MF studio last year doing BFD stuff - great place! It would be interesting to chat at some point.
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Exactly! When u bought my JCM 800 (2203) new in 1986 there was no overdrive or boost pedal included in the price. People always assume that these amps go together with a boost pedal but there are lots of amps that sound good with a boost, even my TSL sounded good with one.
 
Amberience said:
If I take A, B, and C... and compare them. Fine. Valid comparison.

If I take A+OD pedal, B, and C... that is not a valid comparison. Because I'm comparing two similar things to one dissimilar thing.

Adding an OD to the JMP means you're no longer comparing amps. You're comparing tones. Which is fine in and of itself. But it isn't an amp comparison. So no claims can be made about the amps themselves.

That is because the OD is doing more than just bringing the gain up. It is shaping the low-end and the high-end. It is changing the pick attack, and the frequency response of the entire system. It is doing additional stuff to the final tone that the other two amps are not benefiting from.

This is depending on their circuit designs of course, because some amps do in fact have the equivalent of an OD pedal at the front-end. Like the Marshall JCM900 for example; and hilariously, people think they're not real valve amps because of this! LMAO.

@Nolly I was at the MF studio last year doing BFD stuff - great place! It would be interesting to chat at some point.
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Oh hey, that's cool, Pete mentioned! Nice to meet you, I'll DM
 
panhead said:
In a blind test they all sound similar
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Genuinely hilarious and true. I'm not entirely sure what exactly the comparison is focused on. They all sound great solo, I wonder which would sit best in a mix
 
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